This Day in Literary History (Shelley Elopes With 2nd Teenage Bride)

July 28, 1814—At 5 in the morning, a chaise whisked Percy Bysshe Shelley and the daughter of his hero William Godwin off to France. The elopement with 16-year-old Mary Godwin—better known today as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author of Frankenstein—was the poet’s second in four years with a teenager—and solidified his reputation for flouting contemporary mores.

Much of the life and loves of the poet who desired to be one of the “unacknowledged legislators of the world” could be said to be a forerunner of the lifestyle of late-20th century pop/rock stars, in rather startling ways.

In the latter period, the objects of young girls’ affections were, more often than not, rock ‘n’ roll singers; in the 19th century, these sensitive bad boys tended to be Romantic poets, like Shelley and good friend, Lord Byron. In both cases, I suspect, there was an underlying motive that the woman wanted from her partner: write about me, the way Bob Dylan did about Joan Baez (“Visions of Johanna”) or Paul McCartney did about wife Linda (“The Lovely Linda,” of course).

On the versifiers’ end, motives might have been even less pure. A heart that loved only one object would build “a sepulchre for its eternity,” Shelley warned in “Episychidion.” Here’s how Stephen Stills translated that sentiment into current parlance: “Love The One You’re With.”

Percy and Mary had known each other for a year and a half, but the relationship had only became intense in the last two months. By early June, Percy was dining with Godwin and his enchanting daughter daily. By the end of the month, Percy and Mary had become lovers, even consummating their relationship by the graveside of Mary’s mother, early feminist theorist Mary Wollstonecroft.

Now the story begins to sound, for awhile, like something out of Romeo and Juliet, or Anna Karenina. You’d think that Mr. Godwin would be a bit reluctant in lashing out against a young poet who was financially supporting him. But the philosopher was old-fashioned in ways that Shelley hadn’t appreciated. And so, he banned Shelley from his home.

In intellectual candle-power, class, pedigree, and—we can’t forget—looks, poor Harriet Westbrook Shelley couldn’t compete with her not-much-younger rival. Harriet might have agreed with the sentiment voiced more than a century and a half later by folksinger Dory Previn, who found husband Andre Previn bewitched by good friend Mia Farrow: “Beware of Young Girls.”

Nevertheless, the life Percy built for himself and Mary in the next several years began to resemble the one he had with Harriet:

* Irish sojourn: Over the years, singer Marianne Faithfull—wanting a break from the madness of London, and, I recall once, saying she wanted to be among people forgiving of her past ways—has spent time in Ireland, even celebrating it in one of her songs, as “This land I go to when I’m tired/And need to see and walk in green.” In 1812, Percy and Harriet went to the Emerald Isle to campaign for social reform. He returned a few years later, this time with Mary, to lecture on the same subject. Then—as happened much later—the governmental authorities didn’t approve.

* Menage a trois—In the 1960s, David Crosby’s song “Triad,” with its bold call for expanded intimate relationships—“I don't really see, why can't we go on as three”—was controversial enough to ensure his departure from The Byrds. More than 150 years before, I think you can just imagine how Shelley’s similar feelings went over. In August 1811, he had invited friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg—like himself, expelled from Oxford earlier in the year for writing a tract called The Necessities of Atheism—to share their household. Harriet wasn’t keen on the idea. After the poet ran off to the continent with Mary, he took along her “chaperone” and half-sister, Jane Clairmont (who over the next five years, in a series of head-spinning personal changes, renamed herself Clara, then Clare, then Claire). He invited Harriet along, too—but she, in despair over the breakup and raising her two children by Shelley alone, committed suicide. Then, in early 1815, Hogg made another guest appearance in the Shelley household. His old friend, wanting to be hospitable, urged Mary to be a bit more friendly when Hogg came onto her. Mary, like Harriet, was not keen on the idea. Hmm...why not?

* Social ostracism—Shelley’s political radicalism, atheism and free-love principles made him persona non grata in England. He and Mary moved to Italy, where the restless couple spent their longest period of time. One night, while vacationing at Lake Geneva, the couple’s circle of friends—including Byron—sat up, at the latter’s suggestion, telling ghost stories. Mary’s became the basis for Frankenstein. A doctor present, John Polidori, used his famous patient, Byron, as the basis for a character who later became the prototype for Dracula, the “Twilight” series, and countless other vampires too ghoulish to count.

Eight years after running away, Shelley died in a drowning accident. His personal life was a mess, but what we remember him for—and what drew his two wives and friends to him in the first place—were his verses, much beloved by my writing hero, F. Scott Fitzgerald. He might have lived a rock-and-rock lifestyle before its time, but his best work remains fresh, original and powerful and will undoubtedly last longer than even the overwhelming majority of the greatest songs of the rock era.